Some Web design firms have highly compartmentalized departments that separate problem finders from problem planners and problem synthesizers, but flexibility is the key to success. Information architects should meet with clients to help define a project's scope, as well as plot the path to meet the objective and work with the designers and technologists to develop engaging and intuitive visual interfaces. It is important for them to be present during all three phases and to get a client's objectives firsthand. Poor secondhand interpretations can be a project's death. It isn't that managers are inept at translating clients desires, but architects have special architectural questions that a business manager or producer might not be able to intuit.
It's also important for information architects to work closely with visual designers, helping to maintain the balance between form and function. Design effects architecture as much as architecture effects design. Working in a vacuum of compartmentalized skills isn't good for anyone, and it's definitely not good for the end result. Information architects also bridge architecture with development and work with technologists, database engineers, and HTML coders.
Most of the larger Web firms, such as Organic, Razorfish, Studio Archetype, Agency, iXL, Rare Medium, and USWeb/CKS, have established IA departments operating under various names. Some firms base their definitions on software design, while others take a more traditional, physical structure architecture approach. It's impossible to say what works best, because it's relative to the overall environment and work process. In general, it's good to take elements of software design, library science, traditional architecture, and industrial design and sift through for the elements that most apply to Web design and its nuances.
